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rann is an excellent fic writer. It was she who pointed me to the board. She and Santa Crux are wonderful editors as well.

getting an idea, now that can be the rough part...

I read it as well. I totally agree it was well written, but it's not my cup of tea. I'm one of the few fans who's not all that concerned with M & R having kids. No offense cene, it is a very well written fic so good on ya!

Enjoyed your fic. Nice handling of the characters. Touching moments between R and M. Having said that, the topic is not one that I'm really interested in myself. I prefer to read about adventures on the plateau with small glimpses into the past of the characters, depending on the nature of the story. But understanding what you were going for with your story, you did a good job.

I'm actually rather intrigued that people have issue with the pregnancy and what it implies more than the idea that Marguerite once had an abusive partner. I really thought that seeing Marguerite in a situation of helplessness and self-blame, with the sad trap that was the case of that day and age would have been disturbing, a real hard sell. I did think that it fit with her destroyed self-esteem and respect, those wounds she has, but also buoyed her cynical view of relationships.

Well, I promise my next story will not deal with marriage or pregnancy, just dark things in caves. Though, I may not be able to resist one small love scene. This is me, after all. <G> Oh, and whether or not to give Veronica a compound leg fracture. Don't you love having to read about spirit lamps?

I think you are very smart and i liked the story i found it great seing marguerite in a different light xxx keep on typing love laura

For me the issue wasn't the pregnancy more than it was the idea that Marguerite is some how incomplete without having a child or a man to take care of/take care of her. Too many people have that ideal and expect everyone else to fall into place with it. For me it's more intriguing to look into why Marguerite seems (to me anyway) to be leary of kids and is it a result of her deep fear that she is truly evil?

The idea that Marguerite once had an abusive partner never crossed my mind. I simply do not see some of her behavior as having been abused by a partner. I see that behavior as someone who pretty much raised herself and didn't have any loving influences in her life, aside from the thought she had that her parents must have loved her (ie - her locket and the inscription on it) in spite of them "giving her up" (did they really give her up or was it possible they were killed or something else?)

That's the beauty of perception, we all have different perceptions of how the writers wrote Marguerite and how Rachel played those words.

As you and I discussed off board, it's not so much the idea of marriage and kids that bothers me, it's that so many seem to want and need those things to happen to help them keep the relationship of Marguerite and Roxton alive and well. Some people tend to forget or ignore the simple fact that adding kids to ANY relationship can change it drastically and sometimes that is not a good change. Kids are a big responsibility and imho, their relationship as we saw it on screen was simply not ready for that step. Would they have been there in S4? Hard to say. It's like some folks seem to think that everyone NEEDS a child to make them complete. IMHO, that idea is very closed minded and can at times be hurtful to those who are not able to have kids or those who quite simply do not want children of their own. Not everyone is cut out to be a parent and there is nothing wrong with that. The only thing wrong, imho, is when others try to dictate that kind of lifestyle on everyone around them. I'm not saying that is what you're doing...I'm just saying that there is nothing wrong with people who do not choose to have kids. They are no less than anyone who has kids.

I'm not saying that folks shouldn't write fics like yours, just don't expect me to read them. I read yours because I was interested since it was by you.

[font=Georgia]I already wrote you that I liked your fic , but I'm also not to preocuppied if M&R are going to have kids or not.
Don't get me wrong, your fic is great, and I read some other fics that deal with that issue, but I'm not quite into that. I prefer M&R as they are....That's the whole magic of them...

Take care,
AvalonLady [/font]

I'm enjoying hearing everyone's points.

I only see the pregnancy issue as a logical device to see how the relationship can progress dramatically. They are the couple most likely to maintain a sexual relationship, and that would come up as an issue, whether they have children or not. I simply don't want the relationship to stay static, return to it's pre-Trapped spot. At least not for the stories set in the time frame I have put them so far. I don't believe that their relationship or commitment is incomplete or wanting without marriage or children, far from it, but I also believe that their adventures, conflicts, and drama will not end with their inclusion. They are an element of a story, but not the story itself. As long as John and Marguerite stay in character, their story will still be compelling to me.

What intrigued me was the idea of writing elements of an abusive relationship that was not perceived as being such, simply because that wasn't the way it was at that time. Unless the woman died, there was no real crime. What I find disturbing as well, is that rape against a wife or prostitute at that time was no crime. In that time, it was safer to be a mistress than a wife.

I wanted to write Stephen as more complex than just a villain, I wanted to see if I could capture a dashing romantic that could have fooled a wary, sad young woman, who desperately wants to belong somewhere. Because of her background and her own nature, Marguerite did something a lot of women of that age and class wouldn't do - she would fight back. She simply associated Stephen's temper with his drinking, but his real triggers are insecurity, if you listen to the dialog. What set him off were jealously and fear of abandonment. Marguerite is ashamed of what she endured, but she sees it as her failing, her karma, not an outside force and not just a problem of Stephen's. She is willing to leave him, which very few women of her class would ever consider, but what drives her to kill wasn't the pain to herself, but the loss of her baby. In that case, I was using the pregnancy symbolically, to represent the 'normal' life she was trying to capture.

It is because of the existence of Stephen's enemies and the way women were perceived in that age that worked in her favor after Stephen is shot. However, she is still carrying the trauma of having shot someone she loved. That shift in her would be able to help her later as a spy, become more cynical, and more detached. 'I've gotten away with murder once.'

Even though I don't see her shooting Stephen as murder, but as delayed response self-defense, there are some who would call it murder even today, much less at the time. However, I couldn't see Roxton believing that.

I also left the end ambiguous, so those who want them to have a baby could imagine it, and those who really don't can imagine her having a miscarriage. For me, the end was them being able to face a personal demon that almost killed her and her heart.